I9I0.] WORK ON NUTRITIVE PROCESSES. 161 



cular work; consequently he must have burned up in these three 

 hours as much material as would ordinarily be burned by a sub- 

 ject at rest in twenty-four hours. On this same basis, he would 

 need three meals every three hours or one square meal an hour. 



I think figures like these go to show most conclusively that the 

 proposition we hear frequently made to cut down our total food con- 

 sumption is founded on entirely erroneous grounds. If we do 

 muscular work, we must burn up material. We must draw on 

 body substance or we must supply food. I have no doubt that 

 many of us are too fat, not grossly over-weight, but somewhat 

 over. People of sedentary habits have a tendency to take on weight 

 and become 25 or 30 pounds over-weight without much difficulty, 

 but I contend that the average man is not too fat and that his diet 

 is not too large for him. People say continually, " We eat too 

 much." Doubtless at times we do eat too much. I have no doubt 

 that every one of us remembers the feeling of satiety with which 

 we rose from our last Christmas dinner. Doubtless this feeling 

 of satiety was carried farther than health, and in some cases, good 

 breeding would justify, but Christmas dinners are not an everyday 

 occurrence and it is not logical to say that because we over-eat on 

 one day, that we continually over-eat. 



It is the custom of athletes in general to consume large amounts 

 of proteid food, particularly beef, eggs and milk. There is a tra- 

 dition which has been handed down for many years that this diet 

 is best suited for athletes, and that a large quantity of protein is 

 advisable for a high efficiency and large and sudden drafts on 

 strength. It is beginning to be questioned whether or no this after 

 all is the logical diet for training. I have not time to go into this 

 discussion, but there are at present some very strong advocates of 

 a low protein diet, both for ordinary life and for athletic training 

 and while in my mind their case is far from proven, some of the 

 arguments are certainly most striking in their efifectiveness, showing 

 that our good friends, the vegetarians, have developed a remarkable 

 degree of endurance when compared with their meat-eating competi- 

 tors. All of these problems will gradually be worked out and on 

 a sound scientific basis, but they have nothing to do with the general 



PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC, XLIX. I95 K, PRINTED JULY 5, I9I0. 



